LITTLE ROCK (AP) — The state Supreme Court should dismiss a lawsuit about the lottery’s name after a lower court refused to do so last year, a lawyer for the Arkansas Lottery Commission argued Thursday.

The Lottery Commission has said it should be immune from Alpha Marketing’s lawsuit, but a judge in Pulaski County ruled in 2012 that the legal dispute could not be barred under the sovereign immunity doctrine, which prohibits lawsuits against the state.

Alpha Marketing, which is owned by Ed Dozier, says it owned the trademarks for the terms, “Arkansas Lottery,” “Arkansas Lotto” and “Lottery Arkansas” long before the state’s lottery began in 2009, the year after voters approved creating the games to fund college scholarships.

The company sued in 2010, asking a court to find that its trademarks are valid and that Alpha Marketing owns the exclusive right to the use of its trademarks in Arkansas.

On Thursday, Assistant Attorney General David Curran told the high court that Alpha Marketing had also sued the Lottery Commission for money damages and “an injunction that would apparently bar the Lottery Commission or the Scholarship Lottery from every describing itself or explaining what it does to the Arkansas public.”

He asked the court to dismiss Alpha Marketing’s lawsuit.

But David Gershner, an attorney for Alpha Marketing, said the high court should uphold the lower court’s ruling.

“The Lottery Commission is asking this court to issue a ruling that would effectively invalidate Alpha Marketing’s trademarks,” Gershner said.

Thursday is not the first time the case has gone before the state Supreme Court. Justices last year declined to stop the lawsuit, arguing that a lower court didn’t rule on whether the state-run games are immune from the challenge.

The case headed back to Pulaski County, where a judge rejected a motion that the Arkansas Lottery Commission should be immune from the lawsuit.